Iphicratean Thureophoroi

[PMBardunias]

I'm very leary of engaging in anything like argument with either of you, but I can tell you that my thigh will fail long before my aspis. I can stand on my aspis, rock back and forth on the rim, play "king of the castle' on it, etc. I can rest the center of it on a sharp rock and balance on it. I can put the edge up on a saw horse and balance on it...

Try all of that with your thigh, it can do that and more. I can jump up and down on your thigh all day it it won't "fail" (I'm not even sure what a thigh failure would look like). We are not talking about snapping a femur, we are talking about crushing it since the weight is at a single point.

You suggest that the men should stand up straight, using the aspis for breathing room--I suggest that you ask a tug-of-war team to do that, and pit them against another team using their thighs to pull.

This is a good example of one of the problems I have getting my notion across. There is little intuitive understanding of how to push in a phalanx because it is so different from almost everything else we have experienced. When you are pulling in a tug-o-war, the most important thing is that the rope does not stretch- a tug with an elastic band would be comical. When we reverse it to pushing we also need to make sure that the men are as compressed as they can be to transfer force. If they were standing any way but belly to back, then as force increased then men would be pushed until they collapsed to a belly to back position. When that collapse occured all the built up force they had would be dissapaited. Since not everyone would collapse at the same time or all a once, force would be continually bled away as men collapsed until the final density is achieved. What this means is that only at this maximum density is the full force of rear ranks pushing being transferred through the ranks.

Frederick the Great said that you could tell militia at a great distance because they packed too tight, lost their order, and could never be recovered. This is my experience--once the ranks "pack up" you have to re-sort the whole formation. They become a mob. And... that means that the Spartans, for instance, couldn't change direction against the Thebans.

I think this is the exception that proves the rule- only the Spartans could pull off such maneuvers, maybe because they were the only greeks who could fight "no matter who happened to be beside them at the time." But remember most of the famous spartan maneuvering happened when they were not in othismos. You are also assuming that they lose their order, this need not be the case, since they are not a random mob even in othismos, but ordered files of men pushing along a shared direction, belly to back.

In my mind, balance plays a role, too. Once the men are "square on" to the enemy, men lose their balance in heartbeats--as you see over and over in those Russian videos. If they held their off-angle stances, they'd be harder to push over.

Being pushed over is not a problem in full othismos since even corpses cannot fall due to the density of bodies. Also, all but the front two ranks have a specially designed tool in the sauroter to act like a ski-pole and keep them from falling sideways.

Also, no matter how tight you pack your files front to back, you'll never achieve the same consistency side to side--so men will "squirt out" or simply be pushed over.

Not true, this is like asking why bricks in a wall don't "squirt" out sideways.

Finally, the men being pushed forward--the front rankers--can't move their heads and are now meat for the opposing spearmen. Look, those helmets are no real protection.

Front rank men have nothing to fear from spears since they are within the length of the opposing phalanx's shafts. As to protection from other weapons, this needs to be examined. How two men with limited mobility fight and defend is a subject that must be played out.

Or, with nothing but some desperate flailing, I can hit that helmet five or ten times while I get pushed backwards. When we tested this idea with files five deep against a single opponent, the single opponent ALWAYS killed all five men facing him. It may well NOT have been a fair test of othismos--but it did suggest that any form of pushing would simply serve to rob the front rank of the footwork they need to survive.

And yet an Plataea we are told that the Persians attacked individually and in small groups against a phalanx and perished to a man. If a single foe approched a phalanx, and if what you say is true about the phalangite needing to have more room to fight or they will die, there is always the option to take a step forward out of line. Phalanxes are formed to fight other phalanxes and grouped men. In fact, I may not have said this in a while, but othismos CANNOT occur if the enemy decides not to allow it and is able to scramble back. It can only occur if the foe decides, or is forced to by lack of mobility, try to resist the oncoming hoplites.

Also, you'll note in the Russian videos that the flanks bleed out to individual fights in seconds--literally heartbeats--which is what ALWAYS happens at the edge of a linear fight--the flanks bleed outwards into duels, until (seen from overhead) what started as a pair of blocks ends up as something shaped like a double headed axe seen from above, with the "linear" part eventually breaking down altogether. I've done quite a few of these in the SCA (years ago) and even three or four deep, the edge bleeding very quickly defeats the central organization.

Yep that is exactly what happens if there is room. Didn't you ever wonder why light infantry guard the flank of a phalanx? This is also why it is important to have officers stationed on the flank with the discipline to resist moving out of formation. At crowd densities lateral movement is impossible, you are locked in like a brinck in a wall as I said, so this is not a problem during othismos.

Please don't mistake me--I am not suggesting that there was no pushing--merely that the pushing was part of the overall scheme of melee, and on a much more local and limited basis than I think you support.

The type of limited pushing and shield bashing you describe, and I know Paul espouses, is a common feature of clashes of formed men. I am calling this "proto-othismos" since surely this is what true othismos at crowd density developed from.

I'll try this on Sunday--I stand eight men deep as you suggest. And I'll have one hoplite push back. I'll bet he can knock the whole file down. Perhaps not--I'll take pictures!

I will take that bet! Now I need to think of some indigenous Canadian food I want you to pay up with.

Make sure the men are packed belly to back and leaning into the foe. Also the single man must push as hard as he can, in any way he can, but remember that othismos only occurs against resistance, so every time he bounces off and gives more than a pace, then 8 men will have to repack to the right density. A file in othismos density can only shuffle forward a step at a time. In the real setting no phalanx could face a single man, or men that could rapidly move back, in othismos.

To bring us back on topic, I think this is why Iphicratids were thought to have a chance against hoplites. They must have used their elevated mobility to keep their foes in doratismos and not try to resist their advance in a way that would lead to othismos.